The September Society

Charles Lenox, Member of Parliament, sets sail on a clandestine mission for the government.  When an officer is savagely murdered, however, Lenox is drawn toward his old profession, determined to capture another killer.

1873 is a perilous time in the relationship between France and England.  When a string of English spies is found dead on French soil, the threat of all-out war prompts government officials to ask Charles Lenox to visit the newly-dug Suez Canal on a secret mission.

Once he is on board the Lucy, however, Lenox finds himself using not his new skills of diplomacy but his old ones: the ship’s second lieutenant is found dead on the voyage’s first night, his body cruelly abused. The ship’s captain begs the temporarily retired detective to join in the hunt for a criminal.  Lenox finds the trail, but in the claustrophobic atmosphere on board, where nobody can come or go and everyone is a suspect, he has to race against the next crime—and also hope he won’t be the victim.

At once a compulsive murder mystery, a spy story, and an intimate and joyful journey with the Victorian navy, this book shows that no matter how far Lenox strays from his old life, it will always come back to find him.

From the acclaimed author of the Charles Lenox series of mysteries, including the Agatha-nominated novel A Beautiful Blue Death, comes a riveting short story of death and detection on the East End.

It’s the end of winter 1865 when Lenox agrees to investigate the death of Phil Jigg, a beloved neighborhood regular, found strangled on Great St. Andrews Street.  In a case that takes him through the noisy vendors and pickpockets, the rough-and-tumble back alleys and local pubs of the Seven Dials, Lenox looks for answers in a place that couldn’t feel more foreign from his West End home—and where his presence is anything but welcome.  The answer comes in the person of someone so ruthless and brutal that those who could help Lenox are terrified into silence.

A whodunit filled with the kind of brooding atmosphere that led Library Journal to remark, “Readers of Anne Perry should be snatching up Finch’s books and clamoring for more” (starred review of A Stranger in Mayfair), this is a delightfully vivid addition to the Charles Lenox series.